7 Ways To Speed Up Windows 7

 

 With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft may just have introduced the fastest operating system in the world. For those speed junkies who are never satisfied, we have provided a few tips that will help you make your
PC even faster.

Disable Automatic Disk Defragmentation

The Automatic Disk Defragmentation feature in Windows is designed to maintain the health of the operating system. However, it also makes Windows run a little slower. You can put an end to this by disabling the feature and manually running at your leisure. To do so, click “Start” and select “Computer.” Next, right click on your primary hard drive and select “Properties.” Lastly, select the “Tools” tab, click “Defragment Now” and uncheck the “Run on a schedule” option.

Utilize ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost is a built-in Windows 7 feature that allows you to use a USB flash drive to enhance system performance. How is this possible? The drive itself acts as additional computer memory!
In order to make use of this feature, you will need a USB drive with at least 2 GB of space. From there, you simply connect the drive to your computer, click “Start” and select “Computer.” Next, click on the USB drive and select “ReadyBoost.” Lastly, select “Use this device” and choose as much capacity as possible below on the “Space to reserve for system speed” slide.

Disable Windows Transparency

The transparency of windows is a great perk from a presentation aspect, but this may not be the case for those with older hardware as it can drastically impact performance. The good thing is that transparency can be disabled with ease. Simply right-click on your desktop, select “Personalize,” choose the active theme and then navigate to “Windows Color.” Finally, uncheck the “Enable Transparency” option.

Disable Unwanted Features

There may be numerous Windows 7 features that you really don’t need. These same features could also slow down your computer. To disable them, click on “Start,” choose “Control Panel” and then select “Programs and features.” Next, select the “Turn Windows features on or off” option, navigate through the list and uncheck all the features you want to disable. Once you are done, simply click “OK” to remove those features.

Disable Startup Services

Startup services are notorious for slowing down performance in XP and Vista. The same holds true for Windows 7. You can disable unwanted services by hitting “Start,” typing “msconfig” in the search bar and clicking “Enter.” Click the “Services Tab” on the next window and deselect the services you do not want to automatically run at startup. While this all depends on preference, services that impact performance the most include “Offline Files,” “Tablet PC Input Services,” Terminal Services,” “Fax” and “Windows Search.”

Disable Minimizing/Maximizing Animations

Many users have already fallen in love with the minimizing and maximizing animation effects of windows. However, some may find it irritating after a while as it can eventually lead to slowdowns. If you want to disable this function, hit “Start,” enter “System Properties Performance” in the search bar and click “OK.” On the next screen, deselect the “Animate window when minimizing and maximizing” option and click “OK.”

Update Your Windows 7 Drivers

Lastly, ensure that you have the latest device drivers made specifically for Windows 7. Since your PC can have hundreds of drivers installed in it at any given time, this task can be tedious. Luckily there are 3rd party utilities out thee such asDriverFinder™, which can greatly speed up this process.

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Tips for preventing bad sectors in hard disks

1. Do not make "umpog" your hard disk at all. Siempre kasama na rito yung nababagsak yung HDD. The HDD may be mostly made of metal but you have to handle them like eggs;

2. If you dont want bad sectors, never move your PC while it is on.
Kahit na 2 inches lang ang iuurong. Never NEVER. Ito ang palagay kong
exception to the rule ?Never say Never?. Shutdown. Shutoff. Move the PC.
Then turn it on.

3. Do not make "patung-patong" your HDD, one on top of the other. Make sure they are in proper packaging (anti-static bags and clamshells or styro boxes) if you have to store them;

4. Only hold or handle your HDDs by their edges, never touch the printed circuit boards or electronic parts.

5. If you have to put the HDD down on, lay it down on an anti-static bag

6. When mounting HDDs use the proper screws (coarse thread and
shorter screw) as opposed to the screws for CDROM drives and Floppy
Drives which are fine thread, and the case screws which are coarse
thread but longer;

7. Use as many screws to mount your HDD as possible, usually 4.
Some techs will use only 3, I have seen HDDs mounted using only 1
screw. Why? the 4 screws will ensure proper heat transfer
from the HDD to the case;

8. Tighten but not overtighten the screws. Your screws are steel, the HDD case is aluminum, you are in danger or damaging the thread in your HDD if you overtighten;

9. You may mount the HDD in any way (level, un-level, upwards,
downwards, vertical) whatever it takes to make it fit your casing.
There will be no problem performance-wise.

But, mind you, if in the future say 2 years, you have to unmount and
reinstall the HDD in a configuration different to what it has been
accustomed to, the HDD might die on you just like that. Example ?
vertically mounted for 2 years, then i-reinstall mo horizontally.
Maaring pag-on mo pa lang ng PC, dedo na ang HDD. It happened to me 3X
already. Perfectly working HDD, then remounted in a different attitude,
patay. Most probably the bearings have gotten used to the old mounting
and seize up when mounted differently.

10. Keep your HDDs cool. Blow fans on them, use coolers. At the very least make sure your casing is properly ventilated. Heat shortens the life of HDDs.

11. Cables? Make sure your cables are good and connected correctly.
I have had bad cables (may gasgas or may kagat kagat ng daga o ipis)
kill HDDs one after the other. Lungkot. Akala ko sira hard disk yun
pala cable, kinabitan ko ng ibang HDD, patay din.

12. Power Supply? Make sure your power supply is up to snuff
(ibig sabihin maganda ang boltahe). This is where most HDDs fail after
serving you for a long time. Low 12-volt rails kill HDD motors. Bad 5V
kill HDD electronics.

13. Power connectors. Make sure your power connectors (those
white plugs with yellow, black and red wires) fit well. Loose connectors
provide bad power. After running your PC for a while, say 15-30
minutes, touch your connectors, if they are hot, then there?s something
loose, replace with a spare connector and label the bad connector. If
you do system checkups, it is good to take note of heat discoloration on
power connectors and replace those bad ones;

14. Brown outs do not just kill lights, they kill HDDs. Brown
outs are sometimes accompanied by bad power spikes and deadly voltage
fluctuations. If you can afford a good UPS, buy one.

15. When transferring HDDs between systems don?t just take one and install into another and fire it up just like that.
Please make sure you get into BIOS first and make sure that your new
system is set to ?auto?. If your old system detected the HDD using
manual or non-standard parameters, then duplicate the parameters first
in BIOS in the new system before booting up. You might scramble all your
data if your new system tries to read the HDD using wrong parameters.

16. If you use your PC a lot, defrag your partitions once a month. If not, a defrag once every 3 months will be fine.
For those of you who think that defragmention speeds up your HDDs
death, may I give a small explanation. If your partition is quite
defragmented, your HDD will be doing a lot of unnecessary work by
default, its head going back and forth trying to get to the different
parts of your files scattered all over your disk. Besides with a
defragmented disk, you will have a more responsive PC.

17. Install enough RAM. You dont want your HDD swapping files back and forth from system RAM and the swap file. Lots of work for the HDD, slow PC.

18. Partition your HDD. At least 2 partitions. One partition for
your Operating System. The other one for your data. This way if your OS
gets corrupted (and it happens) you don?t have to perform PC acrobatics
to get your data back. You can reformat your OS partition and be assured
that your data is safe in a separate partition.

credits to Computer Open House

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Install Windows xp in less than 15 minutes

 

Now, this tip will be very helpful for those who frequently install windows xp operating system. Normally OS installation takes around 40 minutes to complete, but through this trick you can now save 10-15 minutes. This simple tricks goes this way.

1. Boot through Windows XP CD.
2. After all the files are completely loaded, you get the option to select the partition. Select “c”.
3. Now Format the partition, whether it is normal or quick with NTFS or FAT
4. Once the formatting is completed, All the setup files required for installation are copied. Restart your system by pressing Enter.
Now, here begins the Simple trick to save 10-15 minutes.
5. After rebooting, you get a screen where it takes 40 minutes to complete or finalize the OS installation.
6. Now, Press SHIFT + F10 Key -> This opens command prompt.
7. Enter “Taskmgr” at the command prompt window. This will open Task Manager.
8. Click the Process Tab, here we find a process called Setup.exe -> Right Click on Setup.exe -> Set Priority -> Select High or Above Normal. Initially it will be Normal.
Thats it, no more work to do. Relax your self and see how fast the installation process completes
CD keY for xp =BRP6M-RC9CJ-VWDRK-KP2C2-9QFGW

credits to edmondjavier34

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Healthy Usage Of Mobile Phones

 

Mobile phones are indeed the most common and the most popular accessory of the modern world. For most people, it is more of a necessity than a luxury.The trend of mobile phones is seeing an hike in the recent times, owing to the world wide appeal that encompasses these instruments.

Most human brains out there seems to have an addition to the cell radiation pulses , it seems so to me. I see people with cellphone in their ear for at least 4-5 hrs a day.Cheap call rates have further worsened the situation. For a large section of community mobile phone is still a necessity. Even if we know that mobile is a silent killer , we are helpless.We can never avoid mobiles but surely and must regulate the use of mobiles and take appropriate safety measures.

Health Hazards

1.Cancer Risk. A recent study claims that the usage of mobile can heat up the fluid inside your brain and unfortunately you'll not notice any external heating effect because the waves emitted from mobile are in the natural frequency of the cerebral fluid.Also it is almost proved that Electromagnetic radiation from mobile can cause break in DNA and result in Cancer.WHO recommends to limit the usage of mobile to 6 minutes a day!!!

2.Blood Pressure. Though not proved ,experts observe that people using cell phones were prone to high blood pressure.

3.Pregnancy and Infertility. Mobile can affect the growth of embryo if used by pregnant women.A study at the University of Montpellier in France was carried out on 6000 chick embryos and suggested that the heavily exposed chick eggs were five times less likely to survive than the control group.Men who use mobile phones could be risking their fertility, warn researchers.

4.Headaches, Heating Effects, Fatigue. A study brought out that longer the people used mobile phones, the more likely they were to report symptoms such as hot ears, burning skin, headaches and fatigue.

  

5.Others. There are several other health problems which if i explain it's gonna take a whole day.Some of the confirmed problems are :

• Damage nerves in the scalp
• Cause blood cells to leak hemoglobin
• Cause memory loss and mental confusion
• Cause headaches and induce extreme fatigue
• Create joint pain, muscle spasms and tremors
• Create burning sensation and rash on the skin
• Alter the brain's electrical activity during sleep
• Induce ringing ! in the ears, impair sense of smell
• Precipitate cataracts, retina damage and eye cancer
• Open the blood-brain barrier to viruses and toxins
• Reduce the number and efficiency of white blood cells
• Stimulate asthma by producing histamine in mast cells
• Cause digestive problems and raise bad cholesterol levels
• Stress the endocrine system, especially pancreas, thyroid, ovaries, testes

Tips for safe Mobile Usage

1.Use them only for emergency purpose. It is better to use hands free set.

2.A small chip-like cell phone microwave radiation protection device called Anti Radiation Mobile Chip is available, which has the ability to absorb large amount of electromagnetic energy waves from your mobile phone.Also take care to buy mobile phone with low radiation emission[SAR (Specific Absorption Rate)].

3.Don't do even texting frequently because it can create diseases like I pod Finger.

4.Don't put the cell phone in your pocket or belt while in use or while it is on. The body tissue in the lower body area has good conductivity and absorbs radiation more quickly than the head.

5.If using the phone without a headset, wait for the call to connect before placing the phone next to the ear.

6.Do not use the cell phone in enclosed metal spaces such as vehicles or elevators, where devices may use more power to establish connection. The metal enclosure also acts as a Faraday cage that traps the radiation and reflects it back onto the occupants.

7.Do not make a call when the signal strength is one bar or less, which means the phone must work harder to establish a connection.

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Keep Computer Virus Free

Why pay for expensive Anti-Virus software (with a yearly renewal fee to boot) when you can get the same results for free.

By utilizing a minimal combination of free software downloads, exercising practical safeguards and keeping your computer clean (with a regular software cleaning) you can easily maintain a virus free system.

All software recommendations are freeware and can be found at the links below. They do not contain adware or spyware. I recommend them because I use them and they work.

Things You’ll Need:
-Spybot – Search & Destroy
-Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
-CCleaner
-Active Firewall
-Active Pop-Up Blocker

Instructions
Step 1
Check with your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to see if they provide free virus protection software. Most large ISP’s, whether affiliated with your cable or phone company provide the service at no charge.

Note: Register online by logging onto your ISP website. After providing your account info, you will be able to download and run the Anti-Virus installation file. The programs set up menu will guide you from there. Once activated it will monitor your internet connection at no charge.

Step 2
Turn ON the Firewall. Windows systems have built in firewall protection which is really the first line of defense against unauthorized use of your computer. On most Windows systems, simply go to Control Panel and click on Firewall under the Security icon. Verify that it is active.

Step 3
Enable your Pop-Up Blocker. The two most popular web browsers, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox both come with automatic Pop Up Blockers which block ads that Pop-up on screen when you visit a web page. Simply go to your active web browsers menu at the top of the screen and access the Pop-Up settings under Tools/Options.

WARNING: If a stray pop-up does show up on your screen while browsing, most can be removed by clicking on the Red X in the upper right corner of the pop up (don’t hit the OK button.) Some pop-ups – created with bad intentions – will not close directly, will be replaced immediately by another, will redirect you to another web page or may lock your web browser page (possibly downloading spyware.) If you suspect this, immediately disengage your internet connection, close your web browser and run anti-spyware software as a precaution.

Step 4
Run Spybot – Search & Destroy and Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware once a week. These are two of the most effective free anti-spyware programs available. Both remove all types of spyware and tracking cookies from your system. In addition, Spybot features a real-time monitor called Tea Timer which instantly warns of suspicious behavior (like registry changes.)

Note: Using both programs, I run the update feature and scan operation once a week or after a particular heavy computer use period.

Step 5
Run CCleaner once a day to keep your system uncluttered. CCleaner is an easy to use quick scanning cleaning tool which removes unused files from your computer system. Eliminating these files – which are automatically downloaded to your hard drive after each web page visited – optimizes your system allowing it to run faster and frees up your disk space. Its like emptying the daily trash that accumulates on your computer.

Note: I run the cleaner scan once a day and check for updates once a week. I also make use of the onboard registry cleaner which I run once a week to clean the system registry.

Step 6
Beware of File Attachments. NEVER click on an attachment file for an email or instant message from an unknown sender. This is the most common way to download a virus. You should delete the email immediately. Also verify that your communication software is not set up to automatically open attachments when you open emails or messages.

Step 7
Turn Off Your Modem when not actively using the connection for a prolonged period. Most external modems supplied by your ISP have a button which will disengage the internet connection. If not, call your ISP to see if they can provide you with one that does. If they cannot or won’t, unplug the power supply to the modem.

WARNING: “Do you leave your front door unlocked when you leave your house?” Well that’s exactly what your doing when you leave your computer unattended while connected to the internet. The modem is a doorway into your computer and can be an open invitation to the uninvited.

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Improve iPhone Battery Life

Do you love your iPhone? Certainly you do, and so you might be interested in knowing how to take good care of your iPhone so that it could live longer. Since it’s your all in one device, so you just stick to it, the decreased battery life is very obvious. This article will guide you how you can enhance the battery life of your iPhone. Here it goes:

1. Turn off 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, location services, equalizer etc when they’re not required. You must know that all these eat up lot of battery, so turning them off when not required saves lot of battery and hence increases the battery life too.

2. Turn off Auto-Brightness: It’s basically to change iPhone’s screen brightness on the basis of surrounding light and so consumes battery. Also lowering the brightness can save lot of battery. Any brightness level between 25% and 30% is ideal for all times, i.e. day and night. Not a bad idea to keep a constant brightness level, as it’ll be good for iPhone battery as well as your eyes.

3. Turn of sound effects. It really saves lot of your battery. Many times you can have fun without sound effects too!

4. Don’t forget to have a monthly battery calibration. As strictly advised by Apple is to 100% charge the iPhone’s battery when it has completely drained. It means, get the battery completely finished, then charge it fully. An easy option!

5. iPhone case is though a good protective measure, but charging your iPhone within case can harm and may reduce the battery life of your iPhone. This is mainly because iPhone generates heat during charging and when it’s covered with the case, that heat doesn’t get released and so it may damage battery cells or iPhone circuit.

The above list of battery saving tips may not be complete, and you can always add up your points to it, but it covers almost all areas where you can protect your iPhone battery. Use your iPhone with proper care, and it’ll live longer and perform best, exactly how and till when you want it!

credits to Martina James

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Maximize your Laptop Battery

Battery of our laptop/Tablet Pc is a source of power beside the power outlet. Full or perfect charged battery is always our companion when we are out of town. Or attending meetings, seminars we always check our bullets before we go to war. Or charge our battery to full capacity as it can.

Lithium-Ion batteries have a finite life. they slowly degrade from the day they are first made. The life of the battery will depend upon how you charge and discharge the battery and the temperature at which the battery is kept. The truth about Li-ion batteries is that high temperatures are their worst enemy. Therefore, the following tips will help prevent laptop batteries from getting too warm.

•  Always use a laptop on a hard surface. Don’t put it on your lap (despite its name) or on thermal insulating materials such as cushions. If you like to work in bed with your laptop, I recommend using a laptop table.
• Try to avoid charging the battery while you are working with the laptop. Charging the batteries increases your laptop’s temperature. The problem is that the CPU, the graphics card and the hard disk also heat up your laptop, which adds to the temperature increase experienced when charging the battery. Many vendors deliver their laptops with software that allows you to disable charging. You also can remove the battery while you are working on AC current.
• Make sure the laptop’s ventilation can always work properly. Don’t place objects before the ventilation systems opening. Don’t run or charge the laptop while it is in its case.
• Don’t leave the laptop in the car or under the sun in summer. Use a bike. It keeps your laptop battery cool and your own battery healthy. And too much sun exposure causes only skin cancer anyway.
• Do Not - Charge your Notebook/Tablet PC inside a carry case - the battery may overheat.
• Condition a new battery by using it until it is fully discharged,  and then re-charge it fully.  Doing this once a month will help to accurately calibrate your battery.
• When you receive a new NoteBook or Tablet PC, leave the battery to fully charge overnight.

Note:
A manufacturer will rate a Notebook battery to the point where it holds 50% of its original capacity. At this point you should consider replacing the battery.

credits to rikki_ mortel

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Think Before Using USB Flash Drives To Run Applications or OS: Advisory

I am writing this post on an advisory note. With the extensive use of USB flash driven in our day to day activities, now we have been aiming to make even our Operating System(OS) portable by installing it in a USB Flash Drive and carrying around in our pocket. Moreover we can run applications such as Mozilla, Anti Viruses etc. from a USB pen drives. Here I am going to explain, why you need to think twice before using your USB Flash Drive to run an Operating System from it.

Why you should think twice before using a USB Flash Drive to run an OS or applications for prolonged period?

All flash memory devices can sustain only a limited number of write and erase cycles before failure. While running a normal OS or an Application from a Flash drive, the system will write and erase a huge number of files and data in the flash drive. With prolonged use, the write/erase cycles of your flash drive may come to an end and may eventually fail.

The write/erase cycle performed while running an Operating System(OS) such as Windows XP or 7 will be very much more than what we can perform manually, by copying and deleting data. So this should be a consideration as it may make your flash drive run out of Write/erase cycles much faster than expected.

Another usage of USB is Windows ReadyBoost. Windows 7 and Vista can make use of a USB flash drive as a cache memory to improve the performance.  In this case also the cycles are be used a high rate.

Points to be Noted:

• Flash memory devices have a limited number of write and erase cycles before failure
•  Running an OS or an Application from a Flash drive will write and erase a huge number of files or data in the flash drive per second.
• Running an Operating System(OS) will perform these cycles much more than what we can perform manually
• Prolonged use will make your flash drive run out of write/erase cycles and may eventually fail much before expected

How to address this issue?

To address this, as well as space limitations, some developers have produced special versions of operating systems such as Linux in Live USB or portable applications such as Mozilla Firefox designed to run from flash drives. These are typically optimized for size and configured to place temporary or intermediate files in the computer RAM rather than store them temporarily on the flash drive.

Compared to other portable storage devices such as external hard drives, USB flash drives still have a high price per unit of storage. But Hard drives have a higher minimum price.

Alternatives:

• Run applications or OS which are configured  for Flash Drive use only
• For Prolonged usage, try buying an external Hard Drive
•  If you are using your USB Drive as a Cache device to improve performance, why not upgrade your RAM size?

Notes:

1. Manual usage of your USB Drive will take years to use up the Write/erase cycles available, so no need to worry.
2. Most Failures in USB Memory Devices are due to wear and tear

credits to dennis

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Computer Technicians Guide To The Apple Mac Boot Shortcuts

 

In this article you will learn all the most important boot shortcuts on a Mac. We’ve all been there. The client is there, you boot their computer and the screen just hangs there. No OS. You sometimes see the grey apple logo, sometimes it’s all white and sometimes you see nothing at all. You absolutely need to know which key to press in order to repair the Mac. Enter the Apple Mac boot shortcuts.

First of all, you don’t have to use an Apple Keyboard to do these. Any regular USB PC keyboard will work as long as you keep in mind the following:
Option = ALT Key
Command = Windows Key

To make these boot shortcuts work, the computer needs to be shutdown and you need to press/hold these keys while booting the computer.

C

Sometimes, the Mac is not programmed to automatically boot from a CD. This allows you to boot directly from the CD.

Option

By far, the most useful shortcut that will tell if the computer has a hard drive failure or a motherboard corruption. When you hold option at start, it will detect all the bootable devices in the Mac such as the CD, Hard Drive, External USB and External FireWire. You can then choose which devices you want to boot from. This is perfect if you want to boot from an external USB/FireWire.

 

D

All Apple Computers come with an Hardware Test CD. When you hold D, the cd needs to be already inserted. It will boot Apple Hardware Test which is an incredible powerful tool that will make a precise diagnostic on your client’s computer about any form of hardware failure: RAM, hard drive, motherboard etc.

 

Option – Command – P – R

This combination will reset the NVRAM and PRAM of your client’s computer. What does it mean? It will reset all the default settings on the motherboard or built in features including: Serial Port Configuration, Clock, Volume, Double-Click time, Virtual Memory, RAM disk, Mouse Speed, Application Font, Alarm Clock, Monitor Color Depth, Startup Disk and Serial Printer location. This is often done if your client’s machine boots into a weird pink color. To do this NVRAM/PRAM reset, your need to hold the keys when you boot your client’s Mac. Hold down the keys until the computer restarts with the startup sound the second time.
Hold the mouse or trackpad button

This will eject all the removable media plugged to your Mac. (Cd, USB, Firewire etc.) This is perfect if the CD is stuck inside and the keyboard is not working or if the Mac tries to boot from an unknown external device.

Command-S

This will boot the machine in Single-User mode. It is a UNIX-like interface where you can enter many simple commands to troubleshoot the machine. This is mainly popular with the use of “fsck ” to check the computer disk permission.

Command-V

This starts the Mac in Verbose Mode. You will see all the descriptive text of all the boot steps, similar to Windows’s Safe Mode. If the computer freezes on startup, you can see where it will freeze.

T

This puts the Mac in Target Mode. It will transform the Mac into a giant Firewire external drive. You can access the files from another computer. Perfect if you need to repair a corrupted hard drive or backup files.

Shift

This will start the Mac on a safe boot. It will disable all the login items, all the non-default fonts, disable all the cache and it will force a directory check.

If you are still unable to enter the system or at least see the grey Apple logo at the beginning after using these shortcuts, the problem is most likely going to be a motherboard corruption.

Guest Post by Marco Rodi: Marco Rodi owns an IT Engineering university degree. He has his own computer repair business that mainly does Apple Support (OrdiRodi – http://www.ordirodi.com) located in Montreal. He works for Transat as an application support Engineer where he has to maintain all the software that makes the airplanes fly. He’s also an active bassist. (http://www.marcorodi.com)

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SafeMSI.exe

SafeMSI.exe is a tiny, portable, freeware application designed to let you uninstall programs in safe mode. When the computer is in safe mode, the Windows Installer service isn’t started so most programs can’t be uninstalled. Since technicians do a lot of work in safe mode and being unable to uninstall is a huge bother. It is also not possible to start the service manually, an error message will come up saying “Could not start the Windows Installer service on Local Computer. Error 1084: This service cannot be started in Safe Mode”. This tool will do a registry tweak so that Windows Installer is made a safe service and it will launch the Windows Installer service. The tool is meant to be used after you are already in safe mode, it is a tiny .exe that just needs to be double-clicked or run and it runs very quickly.

The website mentions that the tool is compatible with Windows NT, 2000, XP and Server 2000. Although it doesn’t mention it, it is also compatible with newer versions including Windows 7.

credits to Rebecca


Download Link:

http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/tips/jsi-tip-9233-safemsi-exe-freeware-starts-windows-installer-in-safe-mode-.aspx

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How to Remove a Rootkit from a Windows System

How to Remove a Rootkit from a Windows System

What is a Rootkit?

A rootkit is a software program that enables attackers to gain administrator access to a system. On Unix/Linux system, this is called “root” access. Rootkits contain tools and code that help attackers hide their presence as well as give the attacker full control of the server or client machine continuously without being noticed. Sometimes they even cause typical malware type problems. I had a case where a browser hijack was being caused by a particular rootkit installed on the system. In this article, I will show you one way to remove a Rootkit from a Windows system.

“Rootkits are usually installed on systems when they have been successfully compromised and the highest level of access has been given (usually root) Some rootkits refuse to be installed until the attacker has root access, due to read and write permission to certain files. Once the system has been successfully compromised and the attacker has root, he\she may then install the rootkit, allowing them to cover their tracks and wipe the log files.”

A typical rootkit consists of the following utilities:

• Backdoor Programs – login backdoors, telnetd etc
• Packet Sniffers – Sniff network traffic such as FTP, TELNET,POP3
• Log-Wiping Utilities – Bash the logs to cover tracks
• DDoS Programs – Turn the box into a DDoS client (Remember trinoo?)
• IRC\Bots – Bots used to take over IRC channels (Lame and annoying)
• Miscellaneous programs – May contain exploit, log editor

Types of Rootkit

• Persistent Rootkits
A persistent rootkit activates each time the system boots. Normally these types of Rootkits are stored in the system registry.
• Memory-Based or non-Persistent Rootkits
Memory-based rootkits will not automatically run after a reboot; they are stored in memory and lost when the computer reboots.
• User-mode Rootkits
User-mode rootkits operate at the application layer and filter calls going from the system API (Application programming interface) to the kernel. These rootkits normally change the system binary files to malicious code that redirects control of the computer to the creator of the rootkit.
• Kernel-mode Rootkits
Kernel-mode rootkits hook to the system’s kernel API’s and modify data structure within the kernel itself. These are the most effective and dangerous types of rootkits. Kernal-mode rootkits are very difficult to detect and can hide on a system without any indication of being active.
• Bootkits
Bootkits are variations of kernel-mode rootkits that infect the Master Boot Record (MBR). The malicious code can be executed before the computer actually boots.
• FirmWare
A firmware rootkit infects a device or piece of hardware where code resides, such as a network card or the system BIOS. Mebromi firmware rootkit http://blog.webroot.com/2011/09/13/mebromi-the-first-bios-rootkit-in-the-wild/
• Hypervisor
These are newer types of rootkits that are infecting the hypervisor layer of a virtual machine setup. The hypervisor is basically the layer between physical hardware (host systems) and the virtual system (guest), although a type II hypervisor can be installed on top of an OS in order to present a virtual layer to the virtual system. These rootkits can intercept hardware “calls” going to the original operating systems.

How to remove the Rootkit

This is where it gets fun! There are different approaches and really no single full-proof method, neither is it guaranteed that the rootkit will be fully removed. As a matter of fact, there are some computer security experts who simply recommend formatting the drive and completely re-installing the operating system.

The Manual Method

This may or may not be more time consuming than trying to search using an automatic tool. If you are familiar with legitimate Windows services and programs and can pick out suspicious files, then this could be the way to go. Many times, rootkit scanners will not detect rootkit infections, especially if they are new, so this may be the way to go if you don’t want to go straight to the nuke-and-pave solution.

Tools:

• AutoRuns
• Process Explorer
• msconfig
• Hijackthis along with hijackthis.de

Here is a process for locating a rootkit via msconfig:

1. Open msconfig and enable bootlog. In XP, goto Start then Run. Type in “msconfig” (without quotes). Goto the “boot.ini” tab and tick “Boot log” In Vista and Windows 7, goto Start, type in “msconfig” (without quotes). Goto the “Boot” tab and tick “Boot log”2. Restart the Computer 3. Open C:WINDOWS or C:WINNT and open ntbtlog and search for malicious files. You can start by searching this short list from Computersight.com for the files starting with the following names. It may contain some random characters after it.
• rot
• gas
• gaopdx
• seneka
• win32k.sys
• uacd
• tdss
• kungsf
• gxvxc
• ovsfth
• msqp
• ndisp
• msivx
• skynet
Get the path of the file name: \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\BadRootkit.sys For an exhaustive list of rootkits that you can search for, check out this Rootkit List from Bleeping Computer. 4) Open up a command prompt and disable file permission using either the CACLS or ICACLS command. For e.g., type cmd in the Run box (XP) or search box (Vista/7) with Admin privileges (in Vista and Windows 7 Hit Ctrl-Shift-Enter to enter the command prompt as an Admin) and type cacls C:WINDOWS\system32\drivers\BadRootkit.SYS /d everyone or Icacls C:WINDOWS\system32\drivers\BadRootkit.SYS /deny S-1-1-0:FMRXRW (cacls /d everyone denies permission to the files for all users, Icacls /deny Sid:permission can deny Simple or Specific rights) 5) Restart the computer 6) Search for the file in the following location and remove it C:\WINDOWS or C:WINNT C:\WINDOWS\system32 C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers Registry Clear the temp, %temp% and prefetch folders The Automatic/ Semi-Automatic method

You can check out a list of rootkit removal tools here.

I would first fire up TDSSKiller from Kaspersky. It runs a fairly quick scan and TDSS variants are popular, so it may catch something on the first attempt.

If the TDSSKiller comes up empty then try out GMER, which is a powerful and exhaustive rootkit scanner.

From there I like to use AVG’s Rootkit Scanner. This tool has actually found quite a bit of rootkits for me. It’s also good to run it after you have removed the rootkit to be thorough, although you could do that with any of these tools. Another program worth mentioning at this point is the new Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Beta. There has been some buzz that this tool has been fairly successful at finding hidden rootkits.

If these rootkit scanners are not finding anything, or they do find something but can’t delete it, then you may have to move to the manual method. You can also keep trying other tools but there does come a point when you have to evaluate if the time and effort is worth it or you should either try a manual method, or perform a full re-installation of the operating system. 

credits to Chuck Romano

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